Experiments Altering Rocker/Camber

[margotron]

This post is dedicated to swissiphic.

Have you ever checked if your skis have the same rocker/camber profile? Probably not because they're probably the same, right. But what if they weren't? What if you're bored your GF is gone you have a tinkering problem and no respect for factories?

Last year I received a pair of skis w/ mismatched camber from meter-man (meter if you're reading this I owe you a sixer. PM me). One had aggressive camber, as designed, the other was flat. Flat as granite countertop. Flat as Keira Knightley (click).



I loved how they skied. Felt like superman. You know the feeling. "That three foot cliff over there is mine!" But one ski floated better and one ski carved better, in my imagination. What to do? PM swissiphic.

I just jam the tips/shovel/tails/ etc...under a door jam and bend

Great.

I ended up improvising a gravity press. Without heating the ski I was able to alter the rocker/camber profile but the new shape wouldn't stay. How's a real press work? Heat and pressure. How to heat? Wax, I suppose. So I waxed them at high heat with lots of wax and slow movement. This was better but still couldn't get the shape I wanted to stick. One night I wandered out to the shop like one does when pretty buzzed. I notice a ton of wax buildup on the top of the skis which annoyed me until it hits me - wax both sides of the ski! One top sheet is burnt and bubbled from leaving the iron to get a beer but the new shape took.

And that's my presentation on John Steinbeck. I hope you enjoyed it.

[abraham]

https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...ad.php?t=59636

[gregorys]

Yup, that's exactly how I "un-bent" my Bonafides.
And it took heat to get the last 50% "un-bend" and to get things to hold.

https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...bent+bonafides

But even now the profile isn't the same. [A bit longer rocker-line and 3-5mm of additional splay.] Still wasn't really able to tell stark differences between the two. I've only skied them one day, but so far so good.

-Greg

[swissiphic]

Nice work Margotron! The one thing i'm curious about though, is do skis stay true and flat in torsion using yer process? I can imagine if the blocks are just a bit off, the skis could twist a bit as they cool and reset?

Totally consumed by boot project but lookin' forward to employed the margiron process for sum more ski rebending.

Did some snow turns on the first day of truly heinous conditions yesterday on my re re re bent K2 Darksides and still super stoked as to how much an improvement the mods have made. The skis really feel like an extension of my body...that's about all a skier can ask for in ski feelz, isn't it? When things are going right, there's a feel of all balance being on the ballz of feet, skis transmit good vibes from the front rocker contact point and tips and tails of skis just disappear. Pretty magical.

Dunno if i mentioned it in another post, but for this years tweaking i'm using a measurement of top of knee cap to floor distance as a boot center to fore rocker contact point distance for non full rocker skis. The modded K2's measure out this way, my armada jj's are pretty close in stock form and i bent that rocker profile into my summer sand/gravel/scree rossi b3's both fore and aft in this fashion for earthen skiing... For me and my style, seems to be a magik number...if it works on snow and earth, must be something to it. Need more testing with other skis to confirm though.

[GPP33]

I forced some rocker into some K2s probably 5 or 6 years ago that has stuck. They have metal so I assume that has helped with the skis taking the set.